(Greek passage)
Anthologia Palatina: v. 72.
This, this is life, when pleasure drives out care.
Short is the span of time we each may share.
To-day, while love, wine, song, the hours adorn1,
To-day we live: none know the coming morn.
Lord Curryfin's assiduities to Miss Gryll had discomposed Mr. Falconer more than he chose to confess to himself. Lord Curryfin, on entering the drawing-rooms, went up immediately to the young lady of the house; and Mr. Falconer, to the amazement2 of the reverend doctor, sat down in the outer drawing-room on a sofa by the side of Miss Ilex, with whom he entered into conversation.
In the inner drawing-room some of the young ladies were engaged with music, and were entreated4 to continue their performance. Some of them were conversing5, or looking over new publications.
After a brilliant symphony, performed by one of the young visitors, in which runs and crossings of demisemiquavers in tempo6 prestissimo occupied the principal share, Mr. Falconer asked Miss Ilex how she liked it.
Miss Ilex. I admire it as a splendid piece of legerdemain7; but it expresses nothing.
Mr. Falconer. It is well to know that such things can be done; and when we have reached the extreme complications of art, we may hope to return to Nature and simplicity8.
Miss Ilex. Not that it is impossible to reconcile execution and expression. Rubini identified the redundancies of ornament9 with the overflowings of feeling, and the music of Donizetti furnished him most happily with the means of developing this power. I never felt so transported out of myself as when I heard him sing Tu che al ciel spiegasti l' ali.
Mr. Falconer. Do you place Donizetti above Mozart?
Miss Ilex. Oh, surely not. But for supplying expressive10 music to a singer like Rubini, I think Donizetti has no equal; at any rate no superior. For music that does not require, and does not even suit, such a singer, but which requires only to be correctly interpreted to be universally recognised as the absolute perfection of melody, harmony, and expression, I think Mozart has none. Beethoven perhaps: he composed only one opera, Fidelio; but what an opera that is! What an effect in the sudden change of the key, when Leonora throws herself between her husband and Pizarro: and again, in the change of the key with the change of the scene, when we pass from the prison to the hall of the palace! What pathos11 in the songs of affection, what grandeur12 in the songs of triumph, what wonderful combinations in the accompaniments, where a perpetual stream of counter-melody creeps along in the bass13, yet in perfect harmony with the melody above!
Mr. Falconer. What say you to Haydn?
Miss Ilex. Haydn has not written operas, and my principal experience is derived14 from the Italian theatre. But his music is essentially15 dramatic. It is a full stream of perfect harmony in subjection to exquisite16 melody; and in simple ballad17-strains, that go direct to the heart, he is almost supreme18 and alone. Think of that air with which every one is familiar, 'My mother bids me bind19 my hair': the graceful20 flow of the first part, the touching22 effect of the semitones in the second: with true intonation23 and true expression, the less such an air is accompanied the better.
Mr. Falconer. There is a beauty and an appeal to the heart in ballads24 which will never lose its effect except on those with whom the pretence25 of fashion overpowers the feeling of Nature.{1}
1 Braham said something like this to a Parliamentary
Committee on Theatres, in 1832.
Miss Ilex. It is strange, however, what influence that pretence has, in overpowering all natural feelings, not in music alone.
'Is it not curious,' thought the doctor, 'that there is only one old woman in the room, and that my young friend should have selected her for the object of his especial attention?'
But a few simple notes struck on the ear of his young friend, who rose from the sofa and approached the singer. The doctor took his place to cut off his retreat.
Miss Gryll, who, though a proficient26 in all music, was particularly partial to ballads, had just begun to sing one.
THE DAPPLED PALFREY{1}
1 Founded on Le Vair Palefroi: among the Fabliaux published
by Barbazan.
'My traitorous27 uncle has wooed for himself:
Her father has sold her for land and for pelf28:
My steed, for whose equal the world they might search,
In mockery they borrow to bear her to church.
'Oh! there is one path through the forest so green,
Where thou and I only, my palfrey, have been:
We traversed it oft, when I rode to her bower29
To tell my love tale through the rift30 of the tower.
'Thou know'st not my words, but thy instinct is good:
By the road to the church lies the path through the wood:
Thy instinct is good, and her love is as true:
Thou wilt31 see thy way homeward: dear palfrey, adieu.'
They feasted full late and full early they rose,
And church-ward they rode more than half in a doze32:
The steed in an instant broke off from the throng33,
And pierced the green path, which he bounded along.
In vain was pursuit, though some followed pell-mell:
Through bramble and thicket35 they floundered and fell.
On the backs of their coursers some dozed36 as before,
And missed not the bride till they reached the church door.
The knight37 from his keep on the forest-bound gazed:
The drawbridge was down, the portcullis was raised:
And true to his hope came the palfrey amain,
With his only loved lady, who checked not the rein38.
The drawbridge went up: the portcullis went down;
The chaplain was ready with bell, book, and gown:
The wreck39 of the bride-train arrived at the gate,
The bride showed the ring, and they muttered 'Too late!'
'Not too late for a feast, though too late for a fray40;
What's done can't be undone41: make peace while you may':
So spake the young knight, and the old ones complied;
And quaffed42 a deep health to the bridegroom and bride.
Mr. Falconer had listened to the ballad with evident pleasure. He turned to resume his place on the sofa, but finding it preoccupied43 by the doctor, he put on a look of disappointment, which seemed to the doctor exceedingly comic.
'Surely,' thought the doctor, 'he is not in love with the old maid.'
Miss Gryll gave up her place to a young lady, who in her turn sang a ballad of a different character.
LOVE AND AGE
I played with you 'mid44 cowslips blowing,
When I was six and you were four;
When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more.
Through groves45 and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,
We wandered hand in hand together;
But that was sixty years ago.
You grew a lovely roseate maiden
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